Anger Into Something Like Forgiveness
by Rasiaa
Summary: One hundred years, and they both tell a very different story. - Shunsui and Lisa -


_First fic of 2020, my dears! It's been a while since I was writing for Bleach. 2017, according to my records. _

_(I have a multi-chap in the works for you. I won't be posting that until it's finished, and it's got a long way to go.)_

_Anyway, here we have Lisa, Shunsui, and Nanao, my favorite triad for mistakes and regrets. Inspired by a truly terrible day at work. Customer service, man._

* * *

She's always here, even in her absence.

She flits around corners and lurks in the dark, reminding him of the biggest mistake he's ever made.

...

_Lisa... was a force to be reckoned with. Not many dared to anger her._

_Shunsui never did intentionally, which she knew, so her anger was half-hearted at best._

_Until it wasn't._

_Lucky for him, he wasn't there for the aftermath. Her energy soared and scorched the ground. Claw marks framed the window of her cell. She was sick, violently so, and the others were as well. White dust littered the floor._

_She stared at her hands and didn't recognize them._

_Shunsui had volunteered this for her. He chose this mission. He was the reason she was there. He was to blame. Who else?_

_She's falling and he's not here to catch her. She served as his lieutenant for almost a hundred years. And he betrayed her._

...

Sometimes, his office is too much to take.

Nanao can, on occasion, make him do the paperwork. It's more than Lisa had ever managed. Yama-jii likes Nanao more than Lisa for this reason. A lot of people like Nanao more than they liked Lisa, because Lisa made them work and didn't tolerate laziness. Nanao is meeker, more likely to fold under someone's defiance.

Shunsui knows she's not the best choice for a lieutenant. She's strong, yes, but not always battle-ready. She's organized and competent in her duties, never late to work. She makes him proud, always.

He sees Lisa in her. They look so much alike. He's never told anyone, but that's the reason why she can make him do the paperwork, why he will work for her. He never put effort into his job when Lisa was around, and when she was gone, he was left with a mess he didn't know how to clean. Nanao reminds him of Lisa, and of his failures, and he knows he would let Lisa down if that mess were to happen again.

The last thing he ever wants is to let Lisa down, even though she'll never be here to see it.

...

_The voice in her head yearned for blood._

_At first, it didn't care whose. If it was blood, it was good enough._

_As the years began to pass, as the sunsets burned her eyes and the unfamiliar terrain of the living world became a home, the voice began to want more. It wanted a target._

_Shunsui was the obvious choice._

_She was angry, so angry, so filled with grief at the very thought of him, that even the sight of cherry blossoms were enough to trigger the pain. It meant he was never far from her thoughts, never far at all, even though she doubted she'd ever see him again, barring the extreme._

_This was a terrible truth to accept. She loved him, once._

...

"Captain?"

The voice pulls him from his thoughts slowly. He hums, distracted, and looks over his shoulder.

It's Nanao.

"Nanao-chan," he says lazily, waving her over. "What can I do for you?"

"You can sign these," she says, shoving a stack of papers under his nose. He winces, grimacing, and waves them away.

"It's far too late to be thinking of such things," he tells her. "Nanao-chan, go put those away. Find someone to spend the night with. Go drinking, dancing - go have fun, hm?"

She doesn't say anything. Instead, she sits beside him, farther than Lisa would've. She pulls her knees to her chest and rests her chin on them. "I know what day it is, Captain," she murmurs. "I think about her, too. It's her birthday, after all."

Shunsui looks up to the sky, chest tight. "What do you remember of her, Nanao-chan? You were so young. She's been gone going on forty years, now."

It takes her a while to reply. When she does, it's unexpected. "I remember that she used to hide magazines from me. I didn't figure out what they were until last year."

He can't help it; he laughs. He laughs for a long time; somehow, he had forgotten the magazines. How could he have forgotten?

It was her secret that everyone knew about. It was none of his business, so he turned a blind eye and pretended not to hear the rumors. He knows full well that his division tolerated his no-nonsense lieutenant so well because she slept with most of them.

He wonders if Nanao has figured that trick out yet, if she knows that particular secret.

He doubts it very much.

...

_"Lisa?"_

_She sighed. "Rose."_

_He sat next to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. He pressed a kiss to her temple and said nothing more. The silent support reminded her that this was a good choice, that Rose loved her and would take only what she was ready to give, nothing more. He was ready to listen when she was ready to talk._

_"Rose," she repeated. "Would you go back, if we could?"_

_He didn't need clarification. "No," he said softly. "No, I can't say I would. They did us a terrible wrong, Lisa, and I'm not ready to forgive it."_

_She sighed again, leaning against his chest. "I just... miss it, sometimes."_

_"The Soul Society, or your old captain?"_

_The question caught her off guard, as did the bitterness in Rose's voice. She looked up and turned his face to look at her. "I miss them both," she said. Rose looked like he'd been hit, so she continued with haste, "I loved him, yes, but I love you more - he was careless and you love me more than he did. I was disposable to him. He proved that easily enough. He didn't fight for me. He let them haul me to my execution. There are some things that can't be taken back. He can never have me again. You will have me until you say you don't want to anymore. I love you more, Rose. I love you more."_

_"I would die before I let you go," Rose whispered, and kissed her._

_The voice in the back of her mind still fought her, sometimes, calling out his name in the nightmares. But there was something special about being valued, and even this monster found comfort in it._

...

Nanao grew up before his eyes.

She's fully grown, passionate and precise.

She kisses him after the sunrise, in the privacy of the captain's office.

He pulls her close, and for once, he doesn't think of Lisa when he sees her. Nanao is ready for any kind of rejection. Lisa would take no such thing. Nanao wants him for him, he knows; for Lisa, he was just another one of her many lovers, and he knew he wasn't anything special to her.

"I - I am sorry, Captain, that was unprofessional -"

"It's fine, Nanao, just fine. You can do that whenever you want," he murmurs, and watches with delight as the blush spreads over her cheekbones.

"I - if you're sure, Captain," she answers.

"Nanao, my dear, call me Shunsui, won't you?"

She swallows, and relaxes against him. "Shunsui," she whispers, and leans up to kiss him again.

And again and again and again and again.

He would die for Lisa in a heartbeat. No questions asked. But Nanao?

He would live for her, if that was what she wanted. No questions asked.

...

_Lisa was aware, vaguely, of the war brewing on her doorstep._

_The Kurosaki kid was cute. Bit of a spitfire, but if she remembered Masaki at all, she was, too. He looked like a Shiba but had his mother's spirit and she watched him transform under their tutelage, and bloom under Shinji's attention in particular._

_Then he left for the front lines and left devastation in his wake, just like his mother._

_She couldn't be angry at him, though. He grew up with the girl, after all, and he was only fifteen or so if she counted right. Fifteen year olds are supposed to be selfish._

_So she wasn't opposed to following Shinji into war. She's long since stopped searching for revenge, if only because it was exhausting to think about it all the time. Hiyori lost her mind to it on a regular basis and Lisa just wanted peace and she wanted her life with Rose to last. She's been allowed to keep so few things in her life._

_She didn't count on Shunsui being there._

_Shinji was off talking to the Captain-Commander, making it clear that they were not on his side. It was for the best._

_She didn't care about the Soul Society at all anymore, stopped missing it decades ago._

_Still, Shunsui haunted her sometimes. He came into her mind when she least expected it._

_Her anger was long gone, fortunately for him._

...

"Let me show you how strong I've become," Lisa says, and Shunsui watches because it would be a crime not to.

Nanao stands beside him as Lisa takes out one, two, ten of the hollows in quick succession, high ranking Gillians. The mask lends her power.

It's terrifying.

"She's okay," Nanao breathes, relief leaking through the words. "She's okay."

"She's better than okay, Nanao," Shunsui mutters. He kisses her hair. "She's happy, for once."

"Was she not?" Nanao asks, looking at him in confusion.

Shunsui rolls the question in his mind. "I think... she was content. But she wasn't happy, necessarily. There's something to be said for being respected out of fear, or respected out of love. I think she's finally figured out the difference."

And he knows it's true. She and Rose - unexpected, certainly - exchange a look, and he recognizes the expression on her face.

Nanao always looked like Lisa, after all.


End file.
